For Blackie Lawless, the writing and recording of
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> was an emotional purge that I don’t think
\nhe expected would be as powerful as it was. One can’t help but
\nlisten to this album and compare it to a work like The Who’s
\nTommy<\/i> (in fact, Lawless saves thanks in the liner notes for
\none Pete Townshend), only this portrait is an even darker one than
\nThe Who could have thought of.<\/p>\n
I didn’t get the message of
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> the first time I listened to it a few years
\nago – but having gone through the entire W.A.S.P. discography up to
\nthis album, I now can appreciate what led Lawless to the tale of
\nJonathan that is told in these 10 songs. Now released as a double
\nCD,
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> adds lots – both good and bad – to a story
\nthat some claim is W.A.S.P.’s best album ever.<\/p>\n
First, I might as well get the potential flame mail going: I
\nstill do not think that
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> is W.A.S.P.’s best work. I’ll save that
\ntitle for
\nThe Last Command<\/i>, with a close runner-up being the group’s
\noverlooked recent release
\nHelldorado<\/i>. But by no means do I think
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> is a bad album; if anything, it has grown
\non me over the years to the point where I think I’d have a
\ndifficult time pulling this one out of the CD player’s
\nrotation.<\/p>\n
The story revolves around Jonathan, a young man who is seen as
\nthe “black sheep” of his family. He both looks up to and despises
\nhis parents, and the only light of hope in his world – his older
\nbrother – is taken from him thanks to a drunk driver. Even more
\nisolated than before, Jonathan runs away from home and falls into
\nthe traps of drugs and alcohol before discovering the key to making
\na name for himself: music. However, the success only leads to more
\nexcesses and, upon the breakup of a Caligula-like party, more
\nisolation. He reaches out to the parents he ran away from, hoping
\nthey will accept him as the success he’s become – only to be
\ncrushed when they reject his attempt to reach out to them. Whether
\nJonathan commits suicide or not at the end of the story is for each
\nlistener to decide.<\/p>\n
Musically,
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i> features Lawless and a skeleton crew at
\ntheir angriest and at their most introspective. Gone is long-time
\nguitarist Chris Holmes, and with a few exceptions, Lawless himself
\nhandles a good portion of the instrumentation. And while this is a
\nsolid effort, I can’t help but miss the bite of Holmes’s guitar
\nwork; Bob Kulick is good, but his work does lack something.<\/p>\n
Some of these songs, if they catch you in the right mood, will
\nbe heartbreakers. “Hold On To My Heart,” “The Idol” and “The Great
\nMisconceptions Of Me” all are tracks that will get you thinking.
\n“Chainsaw Charlie (Murders In The New Morgue)” is one of W.A.S.P.’s
\nbest songs ever – and one strong indictment against certain record
\ncompany executives. Ka-pow.<\/p>\n
The bonus material starts with Lawless’s narration of “The Story
\nOf Jonathan,” which is also printed in the booklet. Frankly,
\nhearing Lawless tell the tale adds more power to the story than
\njust seeing the printed word, and is a well-spent 16 minutes. The
\ntwo b-sides that were apparently left out of the original story,
\n“Phantoms In The Mirror” and “The Eulogy,” both flesh out the story
\nand seem to suggest what Jonathan’s fate really was.<\/p>\n
It is the bonus material that contains some of the surprising
\nmoments, as well as the frustrations. Let’s talk about the
\nfrustrations first. I don’t know if this problem has been
\nrectified, but there are several occasions during the live
\nperformances where the sound completely drops out for two to three
\nseconds. If this wasn’t enough (bad enough it happens
\nonce<\/i>, for God’s sake), the start of “The Invisible Boy”
\nsounds like a tape machine was started out of fast-forward. I mean,
\nI can’t believe any label would put out shit like this – and I’m
\npositive the original source material isn’t to blame. Whoever
\nokayed this should be hung by their manhood, ’cause there’s no
\nfucking excuse for any CD to go out like this in the digital age.
\n‘Nuff said.<\/p>\n
While all the W.A.S.P. discs have had bonus material slapped
\nonto them, it’s on The Crimson Idol that it reaches a pinnacle,
\nturning it into a 2-CD set. The funny thing is, every added on
\ntrack is must-listen material. From the almost note-for-note cover
\nof Led Zeppelin’s “When The Levee Breaks” to the acoustic
\nrenditions of “The Idol” and “Hold On To My Heart,” Lawless and
\ncrew simply amaze the listener. The live tracks recorded at
\nDonnington in 1992 (and the source of most of said problems) are
\nalso fun to listen to, although one wonders if they were really
\nneeded with the promise of a live album (
\nDouble Live Assassins<\/i>) on the horizon of this disc’s
\noriginal release.<\/p>\n
If you already own
\nThe Crimson Idol<\/i>, you’ll definitely want to retire your copy
\nand pick the double-CD set up, sonic warts and all. If you’ve never
\nowned it before, you will want to experience this tale, even though
\nit’s so powerful that you might be scared to listen to it more than
\nonce.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25103,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5899],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36308","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-w-a-s-p","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25103"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36308"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36308"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}